Matérias relevantes de auditoria: entidades de interesse público em Portugal

O objetivo deste estudo passa por o compreender o comportamento das matérias relevantes de auditoria (MRA) divulgadas pelos auditores ao nível dos seus relatórios de auditoria para a realidade das Entidades de Interesse Publico (EIP’s) portuguesas, verificando se existem MRA mais propensas a serem reportadas, ou se existe convergência setorial ao nível das mesmas. O estudo procura também responder se existem de fatores (setor; dimensão do auditor, dimensão da entidade; dimensão da divida comercial; e rentabilidade da entidade) que afetem positivamente o número de MRA reportadas. Visto as MRA, serem uma temática relativamente recente (2016), este estudo visa contribuir com informação relevante para as firmas de auditoria e para os reguladores do setor acerca da aplicabilidade da temática em causa, e da existência de fatores com influência na mesma. A amostra corresponde a 433 EIP’s portuguesas. Os resultados mostram que existem MRA mais propensas a serem reportadas. Contudo, não foi identificada convergência setorial ao nível das mesmas. Por outro lado, foram identificados setores onde a média do número de MRA reportadas é maior. Ao nível da dimensão do auditor não se verificou que a mesma tenha influência sobre o número das MRA, ao contrário da dimensão da entidade (medida pelo total do ativo) e da dívida comercial, onde se verifica que quanto maior a média destes fatores, maior o número de MRA reportadas. Finalmente, ao nível da rentabilidade das entidades verificou-se uma tendência inversa. Quanto maior a rentabilidade, menor o número de MRA.The objective of this study is to understand the behavior of the key audit matters (KAM’s) disclosed by auditors in their audit reports for the reality of Portuguese Public Interest Entities (PIEs), verifying if there are KAM’s more likely to be reported, or if there is sectorial convergence in their level. The study also seeks to answer whether there are factors (sector; auditor size, entity size; commercial debt size; and entity profitability) that positively affect the number of reported KAM’s. As the KAM’s are a relatively recent topic (2016), this study aims to contribute with relevant information to audit firms and regulators about the applicability of this topic and the existence of factors that influence it. The sample corresponds to 433 Portuguese PIEs. The results show that there are KAM’s that are more likely to be reported. However, no sectoral convergence was identified at their level. On the other hand, sectors where the average number of reported KAM’s is higher were identified. In terms of the size of the auditor, it was not found to have any influence on the number of KAM’s, unlike the size of the entity (measured by total assets) and commercial debt, where it was found that the higher the average of these factors, the higher the number of reported KAM’s. Finally, at the level of profitability of the entities there was an inverse trend. The higher the profitability, the lower the number of KAM’s

Factores relacionados con la fragilidad multidimensional en personas mayores

Objective: to analyze the sociodemographic and health factors related to multidimensional frailty in elderly people living at home. Method: descriptive, exploratory and cross-sectional study, which evaluated 300 elderly enrolled in a Health Unit in the Northern Region of Portugal. The sociodemographic and health conditions of the old people were analyzed, with application of the Tilburg Frailty Index, Falls Efficacy Scale International – 7 items, Barthel Index and Lawton and Brody Scale. Results: in the elderly in the study, with a mean age of 81.34±6.75 years, frailty was identified in 60.33%. The related factors were: gender, marital status, self-perceived health, pathological history, severe disease in the last year, polymedication, falls, fear of falling and higher level of dependence. Conclusion: multidimensional frailty of the elderly living at home is a prevalent condition. When predictor factors in primary health care are analyzed early, it is possible to intervene in order to delay this syndrome.Objetivo: analisar os fatores sociodemográficos e de saúde relacionados com a fragilidade multidimensional em idosos que vivem no domicílio. Método: estudo descritivo, exploratório e transversal, que avaliou 300 idosos inscritos numa Unidade de Saúde da Região Norte de Portugal. Foram analisadas as condições sociodemográficas e de saúde das pessoas idosas, com aplicação do Índice de Fragilidade de Tilburg, Falls Efficacy Scale International – 7 itens, Índice de Barthel e Escala Lawton & Brody. Resultados: nos idosos do estudo, com idade média de 81,34±6,75 anos, a fragilidade foi identificada em 60,33%. Os fatores relacionados foram: género, estado civil, autopercepção de saúde, antecedentes patológicos, doença grave no último ano, polimedicação, quedas, medo de cair e maior nível de dependência. Conclusão: a fragilidade multidimensional dos idosos que vivem no domicílio é uma condição prevalente. Quando analisados precocemente os fatores preditores na atenção primária à saúde, é possível intervir de forma a retardar essa síndrome.Objetivo: analizar los factores sociodemográficos y de salud relacionados con la fragilidad multidimensional en personas mayores que viven en el hogar. Método: estudio descriptivo, exploratorio y transversal, que evaluó a 300 ancianos matriculados en una Unidad de Salud de la Región Norte de Portugal. Se analizaron las condiciones sociodemográficas y de salud de los ancianos, con aplicación del Tilburg Frailty Index, Falls Efficacy Scale International – 7 items, Barthel Index y Lawton and Brody Scale. Resultados: en los ancianos del estudio, con una edad media de 81,34±6,75 años, se identificó fragilidad en el 60,33%. Los factores relacionados fueron: género, estado civil, salud autopercibida, antecedentes patológicos, enfermedad grave en el último año, polimedicación, caídas, miedo a caerse y mayor nivel de dependencia. Conclusión: la fragilidad multidimensional de los ancianos que viven en el hogar es una condición prevalente. Cuando los factores predictores en la atención primaria de salud se analizan temprano, es posible intervenir para retrasar este síndrome.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Automatic strategy for extraction of anthropometric measurements for the diagnostic and evaluation of deformational plagiocephaly from infant’s head models

Deformational Plagiocephaly (DP) refers to an asymmetrical distortion of an infant's skull resulting from external forces applied over time. The diagnosis of this condition is performed using asymmetry indexes that are estimated from specific anatomical landmarks, whose are manually defined on head models acquired using laser scans. However, this manual identification is susceptible to intra-/inter-observer variability, being also time-consuming. Therefore, automatic strategies for the identification of the landmarks and, consequently, extraction of asymmetry indexes, are claimed. A novel pipeline to automatically identify these landmarks on 3D head models and to estimate the relevant cranial asymmetry indexes is proposed. Thus, a template database is created and then aligned with the unlabelled patient through an iterative closest point (ICP) strategy. Here, an initial rigid alignment followed by an affine one are applied to remove global misalignments between each template and the patient. Next, a non-rigid alignment is used to deform the template information to the patient-specific shape. The final position of each landmark is computed as a local weight average of all candidate results. From the identified landmarks, a head's coordinate system is automatically estimated and later used to estimate cranial asymmetry indexes. The proposed framework was evaluated in 15 synthetic infant head's model. Overall, the results demonstrated the accuracy of the identification strategy, with a mean average distance of 2.8 +/- 0.6 mm between the identified landmarks and the ground-truth. Moreover, for the estimation of cranial asymmetry indexes, a performance comparable to the inter-observer variability was achieved.The present submission corresponds to original research work of the authors and has never been submitted elsewhere. Moreover, this work was funded by the project NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-024300, supported by Northern Portugal Regional Operational Programme (Norte2020), under the Portugal 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER). Moreover, this work has been also supported by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2019. Furthermore, the authors acknowledge FCT, Portugal, and the European Social Found, European Union, for funding support through the "Programa Operacional Capital Humano" (POCH) in the scope of the PhD grants SFRH/BD/136721/2018 (Bruno Oliveira), SFRH/BD/136670/2018 (Helena R. Torres), and SFRH/BD/131545/2017 (Fernando Veloso)

Multidimensional Frailty and Lifestyles of Community-Dwelling Older Portuguese Adults

Abstract: (1) Background: Lifestyles are referred to as conditioning factors for the frailty of older adults. However, there are few studies that explore its association. The objective of the present study is to analyze the association between sociodemographic, clinical, and lifestyle factors of older adults people with multidimensional frailty. (2) Methods: Descriptive and correlational study carried out with older adults people registered in a Health Unit in Portugal. Data were collected through a sociodemographic and clinical questionnaire and application of the Individual Lifestyle Profile and Tilburg Frailty Index to assess the lifestyles and multidimensional frailty of older adults, respectively. This last instrument, being of a multidimensional nature, assesses not only physical, but also psychological and social frailty, with a cut-off point of 6. (3) Results: Of the 300 older adults who participated, most were female (60.3%) and had a mean age of 81.34 6.75 years. Moreover, 60.3% of the sample were frail older adults. Gender, marital status, number of household members, number of chronic diseases, number of daily medications, self-perception of health status and lifestyle and use of a walking device were associated with multidimensional frailty (p 0.001). Healthy eating habits, physical activity, relational behaviour, preventive behaviour, and stress management were significantly associated with lower physical, psychological, and social frailty (p 0.001). (4) Conclusions: When community health workers are aware of multidimensional frailty predictors and their components, they can intervene early and, consequently, delay the onset and progression of frailty in older adults.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Effect of the Active Aging-in-Place–Rehabilitation Nursing Program: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract: (1) Background: It is of great importance to promote functional capacity and positive lifestyles, since they contribute to preventing the progression of frailty among the older adults. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of active aging-in-place–rehabilitation nursing program (AAP-RNP) on the functional capacity and lifestyles of frail older adults. (2) Methods: This was a single-blinded, two-group, randomized, controlled trial of 30 frail older people enrolled at a Health-care unit in Portugal between 2021 and 2022. The duration of the program was 12 weeks, and the sessions took place at the participants’ homes. We used as instruments the Tilburg Frailty Indicator; Fried frailty phenotype; Senior Fitness Test battery; Barthel Index; Lawton Index; handgrip strength measurement; Tinetti Index; Individual lifestyle profile; and Borg’s perception of effort. (3) Results: Post-program, there was an improvement in multidimensional and physical frailty, functional capacity, balance, and perceived exertion (p < 0.05) in the experimental group. Among the older adults’ lifestyles, we observed significant improvements in physical activity habits, relational behavior, and stress management. (4) Conclusions: Rehabilitation nurses have a relevant role, and the AAP-RNP seems to be effective in improving functional capacity and lifestyles in frail older adults.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

SRC inhibition prevents P-cadherin mediated signaling and function in basallike breast cancer cells

© The Author(s). 2018. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.BACKGROUND: Basal-like breast cancer (BLBC) is a poor prognosis subgroup of triple-negative carcinomas that still lack specific target therapies and accurate biomarkers for treatment selection. P-cadherin is frequently overexpressed in these tumors, promoting cell invasion, stem cell activity and tumorigenesis by the activation of Src-Family kinase (SRC) signaling. Therefore, our aim was to evaluate if the treatment of BLBC cells with dasatinib, the FDA approved SRC inhibitor, would impact on P-cadherin induced tumor aggressive behavior. METHODS: P-cadherin and SRC expression was evaluated in a series of invasive Breast Cancer and contingency tables and chi-square tests were performed. Cell-cell adhesion measurements were performed by Atomic Force Microscopy, where frequency histograms and Gaussian curves were applied. 2D and 3D cell migration and invasion, proteases secretion and self-renew potential were evaluated in vitro. Student's t-tests were used to determine statistically significant differences. The cadherin/catenin complex interactions were evaluated by in situ proximity-ligation assay, and statistically significant results were determined by using Mann-Whitney test with a Bonferroni correction. In vivo xenograft mouse models were used to evaluate the impact of dasatinib on tumor growth and survival. ANOVA test was used to evaluate the differences in tumor size, considering a confidence interval of 95%. Survival curves were estimated by the Kaplan-Meier's method, using the log-rank test to assess significant differences for mice overall survival. RESULTS: Our data demonstrated that P-cadherin overexpression is significantly associated with SRC activation in breast cancer cells, which was also validated in a large series of primary tumor samples. SRC activity suppression with dasatinib significantly prevented the in vitro functional effects of P-cadherin overexpressing cells, as well as their in vivo tumorigenic and metastatic ability, by increasing mice overall survival. Mechanistically, SRC inhibition affects P-cadherin downstream signaling, rescues the E-cadherin/p120-catenin complex to the cell membrane, recovering cell-cell adhesion function. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion our findings show that targeting P-cadherin/SRC signaling and functional activity may open novel therapeutic opportunities for highly aggressive and poor prognostic basal-like breast cancer.This work was funded by Laço Grant 2014, by FEDER - Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional funds through the COMPETE 2020 – Operacional Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation (POCI), Portugal 2020, and by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia/ Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior under the projects PTDC/SAU-GMG/120049/2010-FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-021209, PEst-C/SAU/LA0003/2013, NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000029 and POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016390. FCT funded the research grants of ASR (SFRH/BPD/75705/2011), ARN (SFRH/BD/100380/2014), BS (SFRH/BPD/104208/2014), AFV (SFRH/BPD/90303/2012), as well as JP with Programa IFCT 2013 (FCT Investigator). IPATIMUP integrates the i3S Research Unit, which is partially supported by FCT in the framework of the project “Institute for Research and Innovation in Health Sciences” (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007274)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Sex and body mass index impact on digit circumference for Leeds Dactylitis Index calculation

OBJECTIVES: To estimate digit circumference and the impact of sex and body mass index (BMI) for the calculation of the Leeds Dactylitis Index (LDI) in psoriatic arthritis (PsA) patients with bilateral dactylitis. METHODS: Digit circumference of the hands and the foot were measured with a dactylometer and were studied according to sex and BMI (divided in 4 weight categories) in healthy Portuguese subjects, using Student's t-test and One-way ANOVA, respectively. The effect size of sex and BMI were calculated using Cohen's d test and Eta squared, respectively. Multiple linear regression was used to calculate the effect of sex and BMI, as well as their interaction, to create a formula to predict digit circumference. RESULTS: Fifty-nine participants (33 women, 26 men) with a mean BMI of 24.8 were included. Men's mean digit circumferences were statistically higher than those of women (p<0.001), with a large sex effect size in most of the digits. Differences in the mean circumference between the four BMI categories were statistically significant (p<0.05) for all digits, with a large BMI effect size. Sex and BMI were independent variables to predict mean digit circumference (p<0.001). A new tool (based on regression analysis) allowing to estimate the circumference of digits for males and females of different BMIs is presented. CONCLUSIONS: Our data allows the calculation of digit circumference for males and females of different BMIs in the Portuguese population; and shows that BMI influences digital circumference supporting BMI inclusion in LDI references tables.publishersversionpublishe

A small TAT-TrkB peptide prevents BDNF receptor cleavage and restores synaptic physiology in Alzheimer's disease

Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.In Alzheimer's disease (AD), amyloid β (Aβ)-triggered cleavage of TrkB-FL impairs brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) signaling, thereby compromising neuronal survival, differentiation, and synaptic transmission and plasticity. Using cerebrospinal fluid and postmortem human brain samples, we show that TrkB-FL cleavage occurs from the early stages of the disease and increases as a function of pathology severity. To explore the therapeutic potential of this disease mechanism, we designed small TAT-fused peptides and screened their ability to prevent TrkB-FL receptor cleavage. Among these, a TAT-TrkB peptide with a lysine-lysine linker prevented TrkB-FL cleavage both in vitro and in vivo and rescued synaptic deficits induced by oligomeric Aβ in hippocampal slices. Furthermore, this TAT-TrkB peptide improved the cognitive performance, ameliorated synaptic plasticity deficits and prevented Tau pathology progression in vivo in the 5XFAD mouse model of AD. No evidence of liver or kidney toxicity was found. We provide proof-of-concept evidence for the efficacy and safety of this therapeutic strategy and anticipate that this TAT-TrkB peptide has the potential to be a disease-modifying drug that can prevent and/or reverse cognitive deficits in patients with AD.publishersversionpublishe

TECNOLOGIA E INOVAÇÃO AO SERVIÇO DO EXERCÍCIO E SAÚDE. Exercício. Pandemia COVID-19. Tecnologia Vs. Isolamento Social

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio